FIFA President Sepp Blatter recently posted his latest views on sanctions for racism in football on Twitter. He grunted in caveman-like fashion, “Financial sanctions: not efficient. Matches behind closed doors not good solution.” He also went on to advocate (in a marginally less neolithic style) a new solution: “Deduction of points/team relegation.” This comes just over a year after Blatter claimed that racism was non-existent in football and could be solved through the act of a handshake. Overlooking the inexplicable U-turn in the FIFA President’s approach towards racism for just a moment, perhaps Blatter has stumbled upon something even more ridiculous than the solving of racism by a handshake.

If racism were to lead to points deductions and relegations for sides, what could be the implications for football? Perhaps we would see racist clubs filter downwards through the divisions, much like Leeds United or Portsmouth, only instead of citing a phase of financial insecurity, the club would blame their decline on a period of heightened racist tendencies. Perhaps eventually this process would lead to the formation of an ultimately racist division in what is currently Npower League 2. Each team in the division would be at the peak of their discriminatory prowess with teams’ fans competing on the obscenity of their chants, with black players being driven forcibly from the league, a situation not dissimilar from the one operating currently in Russian football.

Then would come the inevitable season when a team was in fact too racist to be promoted. Perhaps these clubs would attract big financial backing from the key racist businessmen tycoons, allowing them to bring in the world stars of racist football: John Terry, Luis Suarez and a disproportionately large contingent of the Serbian U21 side. Perhaps we would also see a return to football, from beneath the murky cloud of racism, for former managers such as Ron Atkinson and Luis Aragones. Perhaps we would also see extra officials being introduced behind the goals in this league to catch the endless barrage of bananas being thrown onto the pitch.

Perhaps I have taken this too far. Sepp Blatter said that, “Sanctions against discriminatory acts must be very severe. We’ll discuss this at the next strategic committee in three weeks.” I imagine that none of my satirical predictions above will be discussed in the conference room of the FIFA strategic committee, and with good reason. I’m sure FIFA are having enough trouble tackling racism without idiots like me creating problems in what seems a more than reasonable proposal. It is certainly an improvement on the handshake.